- Email: [email protected]
Current anaesthesia and critical care – changes to the journal
Current Anaesthesia & Critical Care 21 (2010) 105e106
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Current Anaesthesia & Critical Care journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cacc
EDITORIAL
Current anaesthesia and critical care e changes to the journal
It is our intention to make some significant changes to the journal. It is clear from the rate of down loads from the Internet that the focus issues meet a need, whether it be for keeping up to date, CPD, or for passing examinations. This will remain. In medicine ideas have always been important but are increasingly rarely expressed in print. To balance facts with ideas and opinions the personal view section will be extended. To address this we are keen to introduce a section where personal opinion is expressed so that new concepts can be aired and current concepts discussed openly and unconstrained. They will be peer reviewed and a reviewer will add an open and signed commentary. There we hope to encourage leaders in the field to publish their personal views of critical issues. This may encourage debate. We would like to encourage more articles submitted from the readership whether they be case reports with mini reviews which is often a good way at looking at management in the raw, or simply review articles. The value of case reports as a window on ‘hands on ‘ clinical problems has often been under rated and we hope to encourage readers to send in case reports that have useful clinical lessons rather than examples of amazing rarity. Reviews are always a source of information and it is assumed that if a topic was considered worth reviewing by one individual it almost has interest for others. We are also considering starting a medico legal section to discuss what goes wrong and how one can correct things go wrong. In these changes we hope to allow the journal to reflect current trends and enable readers not only to see what is current but also what might be coming soon. It is of value to consider the role of journals in the Internet era. Clearly the role of journals is evolving as the Internet becomes ever more easily accessible and the position of the printed page ever more tenuous. Unfortunately with the Internet comes problems in terms of quality control and while it allows many valuable publications from learned bodies to become easily accessible, it is nevertheless thought provoking to consider that Wikipedia is very frequently the first stop for specialist knowledge for both patient and clinician. Peer review may be criticised, and often is, but even at its worse indicates that some attempt at quality control has been made and that control is inherent in the credibility of the journal. Despite this observation it has to be said that there is good quality information on the Internet and if fact provision is the only role of a journal it is not a robust position. So what is the role of the modern journal? To answer that it would be wise to look back in history. Way back fact and information was painstakingly written in books available to a very few
0953-7112/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cacc.2010.02.008
while news and views spread by word of mouth whether gossip, edict speech or sermon. The advent of the printing press changed all that. Pamphlets and journals were an easy way of distributing information and ideas rapidly. Quicker and cheaper than books and more reproducible than the spoken word in the era before easy fast communication. Both in politics and in medicine pamphlets carried ideas and allowed debate while books always took longer to produce and were more statements of edict or consensus and just occasionally opinion. The more recent evolution of communication has served to emphasise the fact that books are not really contemporary. In medicine this feature has often been protected by the fact that real progress in medicine is relatively slow. The delays inherent in book publication has the advantage that it can iron out the peaks and troughs of enthusiasm and disappointment of scientific advances. In publishing papers and new facts journals increasingly became the means of rapid distribution of knowledge. In parallel with these changes medicine became more scientific with a need to ensure that information provided is as precise as possible at the time of dissemination. This inevitably moves from ideas and concepts to facts. Recently much of the fact is from clinical trial or meta analysis which is has been described as a means of looking at less and less with greater and greater clarity. In many instances the facts may be relatively hard but its applicability limited. Added to this is the unfortunate observation that many trials yield hard data that becomes fact but only transiently. This should not be surprising. Bertrand Russell suggested that all science is dominated by the idea of approximation. He also said that Science may set limits to knowledge but should not set limits to imagination. Medicine without imagination was reputedly a pre-renaissance phenomenon and what changed was the ability to have imagination and ideas and to be able to test them. There is no reason that journals cannot convey both fact and opinion. That is what we intend to achieve. Both current knowledge and ideas are important. In this journal the focus topics we hope will provide the bedrock of current opinion and information about some new trends hence providing relatively speedy access to the ‘facts’. We hope that case reports will provide mini reviews which will open a window on relevant ‘hands-on’ clinical management. A vastly underestimated resource in modern medicine is access to the ideas and concepts of those who have been practicing for many years and whose ideas may not necessarily correlate with current opinion. The new section of personal opinion will we hope provide argued ideas
106
Editorial / Current Anaesthesia & Critical Care 21 (2010) 105e106
from those who have been dwelling on various clinical issues over which they have anxieties. We hope this will air topics that are often not discussed, will be of general interest and will generate thought and maybe even discussion. That brings the subject back to what journals are for. The propagation not just of facts but of ideas.
Dr Neil Soni* Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Anaesthetics, 369 Fulham Rd, London SW10 9NH, United Kingdom * Tel.: þ1 44 2087468026; fax: þ1 44 2087468801. E-mail address: [email protected]
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Current Anaesthesia & Critical Care journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cacc
EDITORIAL
Current anaesthesia and critical care e changes to the journal
It is our intention to make some significant changes to the journal. It is clear from the rate of down loads from the Internet that the focus issues meet a need, whether it be for keeping up to date, CPD, or for passing examinations. This will remain. In medicine ideas have always been important but are increasingly rarely expressed in print. To balance facts with ideas and opinions the personal view section will be extended. To address this we are keen to introduce a section where personal opinion is expressed so that new concepts can be aired and current concepts discussed openly and unconstrained. They will be peer reviewed and a reviewer will add an open and signed commentary. There we hope to encourage leaders in the field to publish their personal views of critical issues. This may encourage debate. We would like to encourage more articles submitted from the readership whether they be case reports with mini reviews which is often a good way at looking at management in the raw, or simply review articles. The value of case reports as a window on ‘hands on ‘ clinical problems has often been under rated and we hope to encourage readers to send in case reports that have useful clinical lessons rather than examples of amazing rarity. Reviews are always a source of information and it is assumed that if a topic was considered worth reviewing by one individual it almost has interest for others. We are also considering starting a medico legal section to discuss what goes wrong and how one can correct things go wrong. In these changes we hope to allow the journal to reflect current trends and enable readers not only to see what is current but also what might be coming soon. It is of value to consider the role of journals in the Internet era. Clearly the role of journals is evolving as the Internet becomes ever more easily accessible and the position of the printed page ever more tenuous. Unfortunately with the Internet comes problems in terms of quality control and while it allows many valuable publications from learned bodies to become easily accessible, it is nevertheless thought provoking to consider that Wikipedia is very frequently the first stop for specialist knowledge for both patient and clinician. Peer review may be criticised, and often is, but even at its worse indicates that some attempt at quality control has been made and that control is inherent in the credibility of the journal. Despite this observation it has to be said that there is good quality information on the Internet and if fact provision is the only role of a journal it is not a robust position. So what is the role of the modern journal? To answer that it would be wise to look back in history. Way back fact and information was painstakingly written in books available to a very few
0953-7112/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cacc.2010.02.008
while news and views spread by word of mouth whether gossip, edict speech or sermon. The advent of the printing press changed all that. Pamphlets and journals were an easy way of distributing information and ideas rapidly. Quicker and cheaper than books and more reproducible than the spoken word in the era before easy fast communication. Both in politics and in medicine pamphlets carried ideas and allowed debate while books always took longer to produce and were more statements of edict or consensus and just occasionally opinion. The more recent evolution of communication has served to emphasise the fact that books are not really contemporary. In medicine this feature has often been protected by the fact that real progress in medicine is relatively slow. The delays inherent in book publication has the advantage that it can iron out the peaks and troughs of enthusiasm and disappointment of scientific advances. In publishing papers and new facts journals increasingly became the means of rapid distribution of knowledge. In parallel with these changes medicine became more scientific with a need to ensure that information provided is as precise as possible at the time of dissemination. This inevitably moves from ideas and concepts to facts. Recently much of the fact is from clinical trial or meta analysis which is has been described as a means of looking at less and less with greater and greater clarity. In many instances the facts may be relatively hard but its applicability limited. Added to this is the unfortunate observation that many trials yield hard data that becomes fact but only transiently. This should not be surprising. Bertrand Russell suggested that all science is dominated by the idea of approximation. He also said that Science may set limits to knowledge but should not set limits to imagination. Medicine without imagination was reputedly a pre-renaissance phenomenon and what changed was the ability to have imagination and ideas and to be able to test them. There is no reason that journals cannot convey both fact and opinion. That is what we intend to achieve. Both current knowledge and ideas are important. In this journal the focus topics we hope will provide the bedrock of current opinion and information about some new trends hence providing relatively speedy access to the ‘facts’. We hope that case reports will provide mini reviews which will open a window on relevant ‘hands-on’ clinical management. A vastly underestimated resource in modern medicine is access to the ideas and concepts of those who have been practicing for many years and whose ideas may not necessarily correlate with current opinion. The new section of personal opinion will we hope provide argued ideas
106
Editorial / Current Anaesthesia & Critical Care 21 (2010) 105e106
from those who have been dwelling on various clinical issues over which they have anxieties. We hope this will air topics that are often not discussed, will be of general interest and will generate thought and maybe even discussion. That brings the subject back to what journals are for. The propagation not just of facts but of ideas.
Dr Neil Soni* Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Anaesthetics, 369 Fulham Rd, London SW10 9NH, United Kingdom * Tel.: þ1 44 2087468026; fax: þ1 44 2087468801. E-mail address: [email protected]